Epress.am News from Armenia
Assembly of Azerbaijani Armenians President Grigory Ayvazyan has officially appealed to the Azerbaijani authorities to have the right to put forth his candidacy in this year’s Nov. 7 parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.
Ayvazyan conveyed the news himself at a press conference in Yerevan today, where he was present with his mother.
“I have applied in the name of one million Azerbaijani-Armenians, but I have not yet received an official response. Azerbaijani authorities sufficed only with making a statement through the APA news agency, that I don’t have the right to submit my candidacy since I’m not a citizen of Azerbaijan,” he said and mentioned the law in Azerbaijan which regulates this issue.
“[Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission President Mazahir Panahov] Muzafar Panakhov [sic], it seems, doesn’t know his country’s laws, on the basis of Articles 52–53, I have the right to be nominated and I am considered a citizen of Azerbaijan,” he said, adding that if Azerbaijan’s authorities don’t accept their lawful request, they will be forced to establish an alternative Milli Majlis (parliament) in Armenia and hold alternative elections, an example of which exists apparently in global practice.